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11/03/2011

Prezi, Online Comic Strips, and Fakebook Integrated in SLA Assignment

Have you ever stepped out of your comfort zone as a
student? How about as a teacher? I received a lot of comments such as the
following from my online College of Ed students, “I stepped outside of my
comfort zone in doing this assignment, and I’m glad I did.” This echoes my sentiment in assigning this
assignment.

Assignment Background: The basic idea of the assignment was to spend an hour playing with
technology and demonstrating knowledge of our second language acquisition (SLA)
weekly readings. I’ll be the first to
admit that these are rigorous readings when encountered for the first time, so
I wanted the students to be able to demonstrate a small portion of their
current understanding (which we will continue to build upon throughout the
term) in a creative manner. The
suggested methods of doing so were online comic strips, Fakebook, Prezi, or
Powerpoint. I gave some basic guidelines
and outlined some possibilities.

I also tried to stress that approximately no more than an
hour needed to be spent on the assignment to meet the expectations, sharing in
a public way was optional, and ultimately the assignment was to demonstrate
understanding of our course objectives—in this case related to SLA theories and
technology integration.

Without further ado,
here is the unveiling of their first creations!

PREZIS on SLA (I was surprised how many students chose to
tackle Prezis! Impressive debuts.)

FAKEBOOKS on SLA THEORIES: This
is a spin-off of the Facebook/social media idea in popular culture. ClassTools.Net
is the site used. Several debates
between theorists play out in some of these.
Some are in a question/answer format.

Click HERE to see what the teachers
and future teachers had to say about the use of each of these tools with
teaching ELLs.

Final Thoughts: I
like having this blog as a way to bring both sections of my online classes
together to share. I encourage them to
look at their work and continue digging into the theories, questioning and
applying.

A few students opted to not share their creations with a
larger audience. I strongly agree that
this should be honored without question.
One student did a great job, but had last minute challenges with the
technology, which is a reality we face when we deal with technology. We need to have a plan B for ourselves and students as well as a way to assess
the process and not only the final product.
I’d also bet that a lot of technology challenges were overcome and not
voiced. Many interesting conversations
about the pros/cons and how-to’s of using these tools are still left to
explore. Feel free to leave your
comments. How can you use these tools in your class?